From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Fri Jan 08 2010 - 23:31:53 EST
Yemen: Latest U.S. Battleground
By Stephen Zunes, January 8, 2010
The United States may be on the verge of involvement in yet another
counterinsurgency war which, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, may make a bad
situation even worse. The attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest
Airlines flight by a Nigerian apparently planned in Yemen, the alleged ties
between the perpetrator of the Ft. Hood massacre to a radical Yemeni
cleric, and an ongoing U.S.-backed Yemeni military offensive against
al-Qaeda have all focused U.S. attention on that country.
Yemen has almost as large a population as Saudi Arabia, yet lacks much in
the way of natural resources. What little oil they have is rapidly being
depleted. Indeed, it's one of the poorest countries in the world, with a
per-capita income of less than $600 per year. More than 40 percent of the
population is unemployed and the economic situation has worsened for most
Yemenis, as a result of a U.S.-backed structural adjustment program imposed
by the International Monetary Fund.
The county is desperate for assistance in sustainable economic development.
The vast majority of U.S. aid, however, has been military. The limited
economic assistance made available has been of dubious effectiveness and
has largely gone through corrupt government channels.
Al-Qaeda's Rise
The United States has long been concerned about the presence of al-Qaeda
operatives within Yemen's porous borders, particularly since the recent
unification of the Yemeni and Saudi branches of the terrorist network.
Thousands of Yemenis participated in the U.S.-supported anti-Soviet
resistance in Afghanistan during the 1980s, becoming radicalized by the
experience and developing links with Osama bin Laden, a Saudi whose father
comes from a Yemeni family. Various clan and tribal loyalties to bin
Laden's family have led to some support within Yemen for the exiled
al-Qaeda leader, even among those who do not necessarily support his
reactionary interpretation of Islam or his terrorist tactics. Hundreds of
thousands of Yemenis have served as migrant laborers in neighboring Saudi
Arabia. There, exposure to the hardline Wahhabi interpretation of Islam
dominant in that country combined with widespread repression and
discrimination has led to further radicalization.
In October 2000, al-Qaeda terrorists attacked the U.S. Navy ship Cole in
the Yemeni port of Aden, killing 17 American sailors. This led to increased
cooperation between U.S. and Yemeni military and intelligence, including a
series of U.S. missile attacks against suspected al-Qaeda operatives.
Currently, hardcore al-Qaeda terrorists in Yemen — many of whom are
foreigners — probably number no more than 200. But they are joined by
roughly 2,000 battle-hardened Yemeni militants who have served time in Iraq
fighting U.S. occupation forces. The swelling of al-Qaeda's ranks by
veterans of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Iraqi insurgency has led to the rise of
a substantially larger and more extreme generation of fighters, who have
ended the uneasy truce between Islamic militants and the Yemeni government.
Opponents of the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq correctly
predicted that the inevitable insurgency would create a new generation of
radical jihadists, comparable to the one that emerged following the Soviet
invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Bush
administration and its congressional supporters — including then-senators
Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton — believed that a U.S. takeover of Iraq was
more important than avoiding the risk of creating of a hotbed of
anti-American terrorism. Ironically, President Obama is relying on Biden
and Clinton — as well as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, another
supporter of the U.S. invasion and occupation — to help us get out of
this mess they helped create.
Not a Failed State
Yemen is one of the most complex societies in the world, and any kind of
overreaction by the United States — particularly one that includes a
strong military component — could be disastrous. Bringing in U.S. forces
or increasing the number of U.S. missile strikes would likely strengthen
the size and radicalization of extremist elements. Instead of recognizing
the strong and longstanding Yemeni tradition of respecting tribal autonomy,
U.S. officials appear to be misinterpreting this lack of central government
control as evidence of a "failed state." The U.S. approach has been to
impose central control by force, through a large-scale counterinsurgency
strategy.
Such a military response could result in an ever-wider insurgency, however.
Indeed, such overreach by the government is what largely prompted the
Houthi rebellion in the northern part of the country, led by adherents of
the Zaydi branch of Shia Islam. The United States has backed a brutal
crackdown by Yemeni and Saudi forces in the Houthi region, largely
accepting exaggerated claims of Iranian support for the rebellion. There is
also a renewal of secessionist activity in the formerly independent south.
These twin threats are largely responsible for the delay in the Yemeni
government's response to the growing al-Qaeda presence in their country.
With the United States threatening more direct military intervention in
Yemen to root out al-Qaeda, the Yemeni government's crackdown may be less a
matter of hoping for something in return for its cooperation than a fear of
what may happen if it does not. The Yemeni government is in a difficult
bind, however. If it doesn't break up the terrorist cells, the likely U.S.
military intervention would probably result in a greatly expanded armed
resistance. If the government casts too wide a net, however, it risks
tribal rebellion and other civil unrest for what will be seen as
unjustifiable repression at the behest of a Western power. Either way, it
would likely increase support for extremist elements, which both the U.S.
and Yemeni governments want destroyed.
For this reason, most Western experts on Yemen agree that increased U.S.
intervention carries serious risks. This would not only result in a
widespread armed backlash within Yemen. Such military intervention by the
United States in yet another Islamic country in the name of
"anti-terrorism" would likely strengthen Islamist militants elsewhere as
well.
Cold War Pawn
As with previous U.S. military interventions, most Americans have little
understanding of the targeted country or its history.
Yemen was divided for most of the 20th century. South Yemen, which received
its independence from Great Britain in 1967 after years of armed
anti-colonial resistance, resulted from a merger between the British colony
of Aden and the British protectorate of South Arabia. Declaring itself the
People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, it became the Arab world's only
Marxist-Leninist state and developed close ties with the Soviet Union. As
many as 300,000 South Yemenis fled to the north in the years following
independence.
North Yemen, independent since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918,
became embroiled in a bloody civil war during the 1960s between
Saudi-backed royalist forces and Egyptian-backed republican forces. The
republican forces eventually triumphed, though political instability,
military coups, assassinations, and periodic armed uprisings continued.
In both countries, ancient tribal and modern ideological divisions have
made control of these disparate armed forces virtually impossible. Major
segments of the national armies would periodically disintegrate, with
soldiers bringing their weapons home with them. Lawlessness and chaos have
been common for decades, with tribes regularly shifting loyalties in both
their internal feuds and their alliances with their governments. Many
tribes have been in a permanent state of war for years, and almost every
male adolescent and adult routinely carries a rifle.
In 1979, in one of the more absurd episodes of the Cold War, a minor
upsurge in fighting along the former border led to a major U.S. military
mobilization in response to what the Carter administration called a
Soviet-sponsored act of international aggression. In March of that year,
South Yemeni forces, in support of some North Yemeni guerrillas, shelled
some North Yemeni government positions. In response, Carter ordered the
aircraft carrier Constellation and a flotilla of warships to the Arabian
Sea as a show of force. Bypassing congressional approval, the
administration rushed nearly $499 million worth of modern weaponry to North
Yemen, including 64 M-60 tanks, 70 armored personnel carriers, and 12 F-5E
aircraft. Included were an estimated 400 American advisers and 80 Taiwanese
pilots for the sophisticated warplanes that no Yemeni knew how to fly.
This gross overreaction to a local conflict led to widespread international
criticism. Indeed, the Soviets were apparently unaware of the border
clashes and the fighting died down within a couple of weeks. Development
groups were particularly critical of this U.S. attempt to send such
expensive high-tech weaponry to a country with some of the highest rates of
infant mortality, chronic disease, and illiteracy in the world.
The communist regime in South Yemen collapsed in the 1980s, when rival
factions of the Politburo and Central Committee killed each other and their
supporters by the thousands. With the southern leadership decimated, the
two countries merged in May 1990. The newly united country's democratic
constitution gave Yemen one of the most genuinely representative
governments in the region.
Later in 1990, when serving as a non-permanent member of the UN Security
Council, Yemen voted against the U.S.-led effort to authorize the use of
force against Iraq to drive its occupation forces from Kuwait. A U.S.
representative was overheard declaring to the Yemeni ambassador, "That was
the most expensive 'no' vote you ever cast." The United States immediately
withdrew $70 million in foreign aid to Yemen while dramatically increasing
aid to neighboring dictatorships that supported the U.S.-led war effort.
Over the next several years, apparently upset with the dangerous precedent
of a democratic Arab neighbor, the U.S.-backed regime in Saudi Arabia
engaged in a series of attacks against Yemen along its disputed border.
Renewed Violence and Repression
In 1994, ideological and regional clan-based rivalries led to a brief civil
war, with the south temporarily seceding and the government mobilizing some
of the jihadist veterans of the Afghan war to fight the leftist rebellion.
After crushing the southern secessionists, the government of President Ali
Abdullah Saleh became increasingly authoritarian. U.S. support resumed and
aid increased. Unlike most U.S. allies in the region, direct elections for
the president and parliament have continued, but they have hardly been free
or fair. Saleh officially received an unlikely 94 percent of the vote in
the 1999 election. And in the most recently election, in 2006, government
and police were openly pushing for Saleh's re-election amid widespread
allegations of voter intimidation, ballot-rigging, vote-buying, and
registration fraud. Just two days before the vote, Saleh announced the
arrest on "terrorism" charges a campaign official of his leading opponent.
Since that time, human rights abuses and political repression — including
unprecedented attacks on independent media — have increased dramatically.
Obama was elected president as the candidate who promised change, including
a shift away from the foreign policy that had led to such disastrous
policies in Iraq and elsewhere. In Yemen, his administration appears to be
pursuing the same short-sighted tactics as its predecessors: support of a
repressive and autocratic regime, pursuit of military solutions to complex
social and political conflicts, and reliance on failed counterinsurgency
doctrines.
Al-Qaeda in Yemen represents a genuine threat. However, any military action
should be Yemeni-led and targeted only at the most dangerous terrorist
cells. We must also press the Yemeni government to become more democratic
and less corrupt, in order to gain the support needed to suppress dangerous
armed elements. In the long term, the United States should significantly
increase desperately needed development aid for the poorest rural
communities that have served as havens for radical Islamists. Such a
strategy would be far more effective than drone attacks, arms transfers,
and counterinsurgency.
Stephen Zunes is a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus and a professor
of politics at the University of San Francisco.
Recommended Citation:
Stephen Zunes, "Yemen: Latest U.S. Battleground" (Washington, DC: Foreign
Policy In Focus, January 8, 2010)
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